Author: Admin

Greg James and Chris Smith (text),  Erica Salcedo (illus),  Kid Normal, Bloomsbury,  1 August 2017,  394pp., $12.99 (pbk),  ISBN: 9781408884539 Kid Normal is great fun and one of those novels that would appeal to a variety of age groups:  so while it is aimed at children eight and over, teenagers and young adults will also enjoy its wry humour. Murph Cooper, the main character, has been mistakenly enrolled at The School. The School is a secret school for the training of young superheroes, who in this case, are known as children with Capes, which is short for capabilities. Once the…

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David Almond (text), Alex T Smith (illus.),  The Tale of Angelino Brown, Walker Books Australia, 1 July 2017, 272pp., $19.99 (hbk) ISBN 9781406358070 This book was full of surprises. Right to the very last page, I never knew what was going to happen next. One day, while at work, Bert the bus driver finds a real live, Tom Thumb-sized angel in his pocket. He’s surprised and takes it home to his wife Betty, who is a school lunch lady. They name the tiny angel Angelino and welcome him into their lives, taking him along to their workplaces.  Bert’s been driving…

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Matthew Edwards, Jonah & the Clockwork Goblin,  Stone Table Books,  20 February 2017,  201pp.,  $23.80 (pbk),  ISBN 9780987619396 Jonah lives with his aunt and brother, Shaun, but Shaun has just joined the army, and Jonah is angry that he is now alone with Aunty. One night a monster arrives and Jonah finds himself involved in some very nasty business in quite another place. Godenow is a country within our world, inhabited by a variety of oddities. The most powerful people are the Sitnalans, but there are Dryads, Goblins, Riggers and Trolls, among other creatures, often with some of the characteristics of…

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R. A. Spratt, Bitter Enemies (Friday Barnes #7),  Penguin Random House Australia,  31 July 2017,  251pp.,  $15.99 (pbk),  ISBN 9780143784197 This is the seventh novel in the Friday Barnes series. At first Friday is whisked off to Switzerland where her parents continue to ignore her, then has to flee back to the old school, Highcrest Academy, and her companions in mischief, Ian and Melanie. As the school is about to celebrate its sesquicentenary, all four previous Headmasters have been invited to attend. They turn out to be a bunch of rogues, and it is up to Friday to unmask them. Spratt creates…

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Louise Mack (text),  Frank Mahony (illus.),  Teens, HarperCollins Australia, 2 August 2017, (first published 1897), 224pp.,  $14.99 (pbk),  ISBN 9781460750797 It was a pleasure to re-read this one-hundred-and-twenty-year old school story. Mack based it on her time at Sydney Girls’ High School, where she was a friendly rival of Ethel Turner. It was the first Australian school story set in a state high school. The modern teenage reader may find it somewhat insipid beside the novels of Marsden, Rubinstein, Metzenthen and Winton. It does not probe the depths that contemporary writers do, and the thirteen- and fourteen-year-old characters are well…

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Charlotte Rose Hamlyn, Opposite Land, Penguin Random House Australia, 31 July 2017, 144pp., $14.99 (pbk) ISBN 9780143780816 Both my 8-year-old girls picked this book up and read it cover to cover. They said it was “ridiculous” and “funny”, particularly that people in Opposite Land “pooped ice-cream”.  It’s not really my kind of story, but I really don’t think it’s aimed at me! The cover is bright and enticing and in graphic novel format, so it presents like a comic, packed with pictures to draw in emerging or reluctant readers. Stevie has had a rough first day at her new school. She…

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Narelle Oliver, I Want to be in a Book, Scholastic Australia,  1 July 2017, 32pp., $24.99 (hbk) ISBN 9781743811634 Cecil is a very patient creature. For most of his life he had existed on a pin board, a sketch on a piece of paper. He had seen other characters come and go, featured in their own book. Cecil’s one wish was to be in his own book. He imagined the adventures he could have and the places he would visit. As he was wishing with all his might, he came away from the paper and down on to the table, only to…

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Megan Jacobson The Build-Up Season, Penguin Random House Australia,  31 July 2017, 262 pp., $19.99 (pbk), ISBN 9780143573388 Seventeen-year-old Iliad Piper is an angry young woman. She lives with her mother and grandmother in Darwin where they have relocated to escape Iliad’s violent father. He is in jail and, living in hiding, Iliad is always fearful he will find them when released. Iliad attends the local high school after being expelled from numerous boarding schools. Thinking she was sent to the boarding schools because she was not wanted, the truth is very different. Iliad falls in love with Jared, the school…

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Tamsin Janu, Blossom, Omnibus/Scholastic Australia,  1 July 2017, 192pp., $16.99 (pbk) ISBN 9781742991641 It is the beginning of the holidays when Lottie hears the wind chimes ring at her front door. Thinking it is her friend, she opens the door to find a little girl standing there holding a flower. Lottie and her Uncle Bobby, with whom she has been living since her mother’s death some years before, take the little girl to the police station. The little girl, named Blossom by Lottie, does not talk and is unidentifiable. The police allow her to stay with Lottie and Uncle Bobby while…

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Named after Nan Chauncy, a noted Tasmanian author of children’s books, this CBCA award been created to honour people who have made an outstanding contribution to the field of Australian children’s literature. The 2017 recipient of the award is an icon of Australian children’s literature – Mem Fox. Her award included the following citation… The recipient of the 2017 CBCA Nan Chauncy Award for outstanding contribution to Australian children’s literature is Merrion (Mem) Fox. Mem Fox has become ‘a household name’ with children, families, students of literature and literacy and the broad community, in a stellar career spanning nearly 40…

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